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Tag: consent

I have been with my children all day. I’ve seen bits and pieces about the “Magaluf girl” giving blow jobs for a holiday but I didn’t want to look too closely because I could already guess how the media would report the story. A young woman who “gave” 24 men blow jobs whilst drunk in a club in Spain would only be reported one way: she was a slag, a slut and a whore.

I didn’t want to read because I remember the coverage of the sexual assault of a young girl at a concert at Slane Castle in Ireland last year: a 17 year old girl who was exploited, assaulted and then had to deal with the images being shared through social media. I thoroughly dislike the term “revenge porn” because it minimises sexual assault and rape with the suggesting of “consent”. Every single person who shared the images and video of the incident at Slane Castle was perpetrating sexual assault – particularly those who shared identifying details of the young woman.

The young woman, who will now be known as the demeaning term “Magaluf girl”, which may or may not be better than her real name being shared, is now experiencing a similar level of blame, harassment, and shaming as the young girl assaulted at Slane Castle. Yet, we still aren’t discussing the issue of sexual exploitation, consent to commit the acts, coercion, consent to share the images in the mass media and the role of men in the club, the audience, and the club owners and managers who planned a game to have a young woman perform sex acts on multiple men.

@Seja75 has written an important critique of media coverage for Ending Victimisation and Blame but I disagree with part of her analysis. I don’t think it’s possible for a young woman who has been drinking in a club surrounded by large numbers of men cheering her on to have informed consent. Even if a woman has sexual fantasies involving exhibitionism, in a situation in a club with an audience, it is very difficult to feel safe enough to say no – to believe you have a choice to say no. Being surrounded by a large number of men is coercion.

This is without getting into the issue of sharing the video and images across the web. Here, I agree with Seja entirely: anyone who was actually concerned about issues of sexual exploitation and assault will have asked several questions including: has the young woman involved given consent to the the sex act? has the young woman consented to filming? Have the men involved consented to filming? Have the men consented to participating (and Seja raises some interesting questions about one of the men involved)? What was the role of the club in this event? Do they have informed consent? Do they even know what informed consent is?

Unlike Seja, I don’t think there is a best case scenario here. Young women are groomed into sexual exploitation from childhood. We are taught not to say no and we all learn very early what the consequences of saying no are. This is a clear case of sexual exploitation – by a club, by people at the club and by the media.

We need to start asking why men would line up to in a club surrounded by an audience to have a woman orally masturbate them. What is going through their heads at that moment? Were they drunk and incapable of informed consent? Or, did they enter the club knowing that this was part of the evening?

We need to challenge the shaming of this young women but we also need to challenge a culture where a young woman could be put in a position like this. We need to start talking honestly about what informed consent actually means and we need to start looking at holding businesses accountable for sexual violence perpetrated on their premises but also created by their employees and managers. The staff who created this “blow job for a holiday” are guilty of coercion.

Sharing the images of this event is unethical and immoral. It isn’t required to discuss this case in the media. The media holds responsibility for further sexually assaulting this young woman, just as they did with the young woman at Slane Castle.

Whatever the answers to the questions raised, one point will remain: the media should be prohibited from sharing these images. And, any media outlet, blogger, tweeter or Reddit commentator who share these types of videos and images without consent should be legally prosecuted for sexual assault.

This week has seen some mind-boggling misogynistic statements being claimed as “feminist” because the people writing them want to think they are feminists. So, for the record, things which are not feminist:

1. Erasing male perpetrators of domestic violence and misrepresenting statistics on domestic violence to claim that men are almost as likely to be victims as women as Ally Fogg* and Mankind have attempted to do is neither feminist nor pre-feminist or feminist ally. It’s just misogyny.

Men perpetrate the vast majority of violence on the planet against women, children and other men. Anyone who claims otherwise is either a liar, stupid or a perpetrator.

Everyone has the right to say no to sex. It doesn’t matter why they say no. No one should be coerced, bullied, humiliated, or forced into having sex with another human being to “prove” they are not bigoted. Not wanting to have sex with someone with a penis or a vulva when you are not sexually attracted to them isn’t bigotry.

Insisting that women be forced to fuck whoever wants to fuck them or be labelled a bigot, boring or shit in bed isn’t feminism. It isn’t even pro-woman. It’s rape culture in action.

I read the New Statesman’s current “guide to sexual consent” written by pornography actress Stoya with interest. It was an interesting angle on consent but I wouldn’t want Stoya in a classroom teaching my child about sex and consent and not because of her employment. I wouldn’t want Stoya teaching my child about consent because her guide is far too simplistic. It fails to acknowledge the reality of coercion within relationships. It doesn’t account for asexuality or trauma.

Stoya has started from the position that sex is something everyone wants and should be having. In our culture, that inevitably means PIV (penis-in-vagina). If we want to start talking about consent, we need to start with babies teaching them bodily autonomy. We need to teach children that no one has the right to touch them without permission and that this includes being forced to kiss Grandad’s cheek, having their hair pulled by a classmate or being tickled. We need to start from the position that PIV is not sex and that it is not necessary to have PIV or PIA to have sex. Until we start teaching both of these, the construct of consent for sex remains focused solely on the male orgasm.

Stoya also seems to be starting from the position that a sexual partner will immediately respect a woman’s desire to stop, without consequence. This is simply not the reality in which many sexual relationships take place. Women are frequently placed in a position where refusing or changing their mind isn’t possible. Or, told that they are required to sexually service a male partner or it will be their fault if he has an affair. Dr Pamela Stephenson, who is the Guardian’s sexual relationships expert, recently told a woman that it was her duty to have PIV even if she didn’t like it or it hurt (brilliantly deconstructed by Ann Tagonist here). Victims of sexual violence who choose not to have PIV are told that there is something wrong with them. Of course, men who insist on PIV with a female partner even when it causes her physical pain are not labelled weird or wrong. Men deserve PIV and its women’s duty to perform, even through physical pain.

I would have labeled Stoya as naive had it not been for these last two points:

7. If your sexual partner(s) express a limit or ask for something to stop and you do not respect it, you are stepping onto a scale that ranges from “jerk” to “full-on rapist”. Personally, I don’t want to be on that scale at all, and I don’t want to engage in sexual activity with anyone who does hang out on that scale.

8. If one of your sexual partners steps on to the jerk-to-full-on rapist scale, call them out on it. You have the right to end the sexual activity you are engaged in and to decline sexual activity with them in the future.

I’m at a loss for words here. No one should be forced to tolerate a jerk but insisting that it’s women’s responsibility to call out a sexual partner is quite dangerous and victim blaming. Sometimes women simply aren’t in a position to say no or to call out a partner. Making statements like this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the reality of sexual and domestic violence because it implies that women who don’t call out their partners are somehow at fault.

We need to start teaching consent to children but we need to acknowledge the reality of male violence and coercion. Consent isn’t as simple as yes and no; not when girls are raised from infancy to believe that their role is to be fucktoys for men.

This is another debate I have not yet commented on but a conversation today on twitter made me want to clarify my thoughts publicly.

I do not believe anyone has the right to sex. I believe that full disclosure is necessary even for casual or one-night relationships. I believe anything less invalidates consent. Lying about your marital status should invalidate consent. Lying about your health in a manner which could compromise the health of your partner invalidates consent.

The police officers who had sexual relationships with women in order to cement their cover whilst spying on left-wing organisations committed rape. Their lies invalidated the consent of the women involved. The fact that this is not illegal simply demonstrates how utterly woman-hating our laws of consent are.

Consent, as it stands now, is a joke. It is designed so that men can fuck whoever they want whenever they want without any consequence. Women’s boundaries and bodily integrity are violated in a million ways every day. The law is designed to defend these violations by men rather than protect women.

We need to rewrite the law completely in order to defend women’s bodily integrity [and, of course, the children and men whose bodies are violated]. This means we need to start with full disclosure before any, however temporary, sexual relationship. And, yes, this will mean difficult conversations. It will also mean forgoing sex because we cannot disclose for whatever reason but including safety.

These conversations will, I have no doubt, be more difficult for transwomen who will be faced with the increased possibility of male violence. It is this very real threat which makes it all the more important for us to smash the patriarchal construction of consent. It may very well mean a decrease in sex for many but no one has the right to sex. We are morally required to ensure the safety of others and that safety includes not violating bodily integrity.

Real consent can only be given when both parties are in possession of all the facts. It is that simple.

This is why I find the term “cotton ceiling” so disturbing. I understand the need for Trans* to self-organise to share stories of full disclosure and offer mutual support over a difficult issue, however the term “cotton ceiling” does not imply respectful discussions of consent and disclosure. The idea that lesbian women are somehow providing a barrier to sex which must be smashed just like the glass ceiling in employment sounds remarkably like denying women bodily integrity. The term itself implies a level of coercion; coercion removes consent. Lack of consent equals rape. This may not be what was meant when the term was first used but the implication is clearly there and it is supported by suggestions that lesbian women are “transphobic” for refusing to have sexual relationships with transwomen.

Being sexually undesirable by someone who you fancy sexually is a horrible position to be in but no one has the right to sex and lesbians have the right to refuse to have sex with whomever they want. Everyone has the right to refuse sex whatever the reason. We need to have conversations about consent and disclosure but they must be done from a position of honesty. If you cannot disclose the truth [whatever that may be] to the person you desire sexually, then you should not have sex with them. This is as valid for one night stands as it is for long-term relationships.